Outlander: Blood of my Blood season 1 episode 3 recap: Tough decisions

NOTE: This post contains spoilers for Outlander: Blood of my Blood’s third episode, "School of the moon”.

Now that Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie have met, and while Henry and Julia Beauchamp try to find each other in 1714, it is time to turn our attention back to the clan gathering at Castle Leoch.

Who will be chosen as the new laird? Can Ellen get out of the deal her brother made with the Grants? Let’s recap what happens in this new episode of Blood of my Blood.

A woman scorned

This new episode opens on Ellen having a sex dream about Brian, which, to be fair, is completely understandable. The guy would go to the ends of the Earth for her, okay? But back to reality, Ellen is woken up by Mrs. Fitz who soon drops a bomb on her: she is to be betrothed to Malcolm Grant. Needless to say, Ellen is not thrilled and immediately goes to confront her brother, Colum, about this decision.

He has the nerve to tell her she should be thankful because there are worse suitors. But since she isn’t the one who beat up Malcolm Grant, Ellen is furious that she has to pay for Dougal’s mistake and tries to convince Colum she is more valuable to him at Leoch than married off to another clan. He doubts she has much counsel to offer, but Ellen has not said her last word here.

In all fairness, Colum thinks he is doing what’s best for the clan, but it’s to the detriment of his relationship with his sister. Ellen then finds Dougal and tells him how upset she is with him, but he reminds her Colum decided of her fate. He isn’t particularly fond of the idea of an alliance with the Grants either, because he suspects they are after much more than just her hand in marriage.

However, it turns out that Dougal is cooking up his own alliance plans in the background of the gathering. Indeed, he chats with fellow Jacobite Marcus MacRannoch about spreading the word that whoever wants a Stuart king should champion him as the laird. But to sweeten the deal for MacRannoch, Dougal offers Ellen as his wife because apparently both her brothers see her as a pawn in their own games.

Ellen the mastermind

While other clan members try to make their cases to be the new lairds of the MacKenzies, Ellen keeps an eye on the situation. She tells Ned that Dougal offered her hand in marriage, too, and he tells her he has been trying to convince her brothers to yield to one another, but to no avail.

During a flashback, we see Red Jacob send Dougal and Colum on a raid, mainly to test Colum’s ability to be chief. But the raid does not go according to plan and Colum is hurt to the point he cannot walk. Red Jacob is furious they abandoned the raid and later finds out what really went wrong and that, to no one’s surprise, it was Dougal’s fault.

But what Red Jacob takes away from his conversation with Colum is that the men decided to follow Dougal rather than him, and that tells him all he needs to know about his oldest son’s ability to lead. However, Red Jacob is not about to let Dougal get out of this unpunished and gives him a lashing for putting the clan in danger. In the end, Dougal blames Colum, Colum blames Dougal, it’s the same old tune between those two.

As the gathering continues, it is clear people doubt Colum physically has what it takes to be laird due to his health condition, and Dougal relishes in his humiliation. When he gloats to Ellen, she reminds him of the “school of the moon” (the raid in the flashback) and how it showed their father that Dougal wasn’t fit to be laird either.

She tells him that he is so busy fighting with Colum that he doesn’t see that others, who would be the Grants’ puppets, are eying the leadership. All would be lost for the MacKenzies, and that is why both Dougal and Colum need to get it together.

Later on, Ellen asks to see Ned because she has an idea about how to solve the situation. When the clan gathers in the great hall of Castle Leoch the next day, her plan is set into motion: Colum and Dougal both present themselves to be laird of clan MacKenzie, side by side. In fact, their idea (or Ellen’s) is to divide the duties: Colum will be laird, taking care of the day to day. But should a war arise, and a war chieftain be needed, then Dougal will be leading the clan.

The two brothers pledge their loyalty to one another, and the rest of the clan soon follows, especially when Ned explains there is precedent for having a peace laird and war chieftain, putting to rest anyone else getting the idea of trying to take over clan MacKenzie.

After the oath-taking, Ned and Henry meet in a brothel where they discuss the union of Ellen and Malcolm. Ned then introduces Henry to the mistress of the establishment, who can help him find Julia. He describes his wife to her and she agrees to look for the missing Englishwoman.

A terrible solution

Speaking of Julia, things are not fine at Castle Leathers. Mrs. Porter has noticed Julia has not had her period since she arrived, and therefore figured out she is pregnant. Julia does her best to deny it, but Mrs. Porter is not new to this. She gives Julia a concoction that can help her “restore her blood”, meaning ending her pregnancy.

Mrs. Porter argues Julia will be even more mistreated if the laird finds out she is with child, and that he will get rid of the bairn himself if she refuses to do so. Julia does point out that Mrs. Porter did not get rid of Brian, but the difference is Brian was the laird’s son.

Later on, as she writes a letter to Henry explaining her situation, Julia admits she will not be able to hide her pregnancy much longer. Therefore, she is forced to make a difficult choice that she hopes her husband will forgive: sleeping with Lord Lovat, in hopes to later convince him that the baby is his, which would save the bairn as it saved Brian.

Meanwhile, Brian and Murtagh return to Leathers after Murtagh was disappointed to hear that Ellen has been promised to another. He told Brian, who was as upset as him although he did not let it show.

Of course, Murtagh doesn’t know (yet) that Brian has also fallen in love with Ellen, so when Brian reports to his father about the gathering and explains Colum has promised Ellen to the Grants in order to appease them after Dougal’s attack on Malcolm, Murtagh doesn’t fully understand what Brian is trying to achieve.

Brian wants to ignite in his father a desire to stop the wedding, because an alliance between the MacKenzies and Grants would not be good for Lord Lovat. And it works! But a bit too well. Because in order to prevent this alliance, Lovat decides to write to Isaac Grant to tarnish Ellen’s reputation, raising the question of why she hasn’t been married yet.

Will Lovat’s letter work and convince Isaac Grant that Ellen is not worthy of his son? Tune in next week for a new episode of Outlander: Blood of my Blood, on Starz and MGM+, to find out.